Miss Maudie
by MSoley
Summary: My story follows shortly after "Go Set A Watchman" concludes. Miss Maudie decides to create a coalition of people from all corners of Maycomb to attend, and speak at, the community council meeting. The reader learns more of Miss Maudie (and her family's history) and is introduced, through different points-of-view, to children of major characters from "To Kill A Mockingbird".


Maudie

Fine folk who believe a small southern town is quiet and unchanging have never been to Maycomb. Our town nearly bursts at the brim with subtle activity. Even the tree frogs share in the cacophony. It's just a matter of perspective, really. If change is measured flash in the pan moments, then yes, we aren't quick to change. Rather we move like a stream after a brief rain: perceptible to the naked eye, but not wild like a stream after a storm. Often we create the movement and other times the movement originates in some other spot and flows to us.

Yet we do cling to our traditions, like sunbrewed tea and afternoon naps when the sun can burn a hole through a copper penny. We gossip, argue, disagree and our family trees intermingle down to the roots. We can talk about Maycomb, but heaven help the outsider who dares to tell us we are backward.

This is our way. But this perspective is rather naive. Living across the street from Atticus for so many years made me feel progressive. The justice system was the great leveler, he would say. But truth be told we were, and are, a racially, and economically, divided town. Separate but equal was comfortable, but true intermingling, dissolving segregation, well, that would take a lot of getting used to. And that's what we were being told to do. The stream was flooding Maycomb. The problem was we didn't know how to put on life jackets and hang on. Instead we tried to dam up the flood. The dyke, alas, wasn't strong enough.

The foot washing Baptists preached the end of days. The Sarum bunch hunkered down with more ammunition and built bunkers, as if a war was imminent. Mr. Underwood wrote editorial after editorial expressing "White Rights". As for me, I decided to try and open up and understand a people I lived near my entire life, but didn't know at all.

Which was tricky. Why would they want to deal with a white woman? Trust me? What did I have to offer them?

Long ago I gave up the fantasy I entertained of marrying Atticus. I had few friends, other than neighbors and the flowers in my garden. I knew my reputation of being a modern woman. But now I was just an old, odd woman. Maybe that would be helpful in my attempt to reach out and cross the invisible, but real divide. My goal is to create a unified group, of a sort, representing both sides of the divide. We will march ourselves into a coalition meeting and let our voices, and hearts, be heard. A lot of planning needs to be done first.

Ch 2.

I'm now seventy years old. Everyone says life is fleeting, but when we are young we pay no mind to it. Then suddenly we are older and wondering where it all went. It's true enough.

I was born on March 8, 1880, and raised, in Maycomb. I was the third daughter and the fifth child. By the time I was five years old, my eldest brother, Jacob, died. One day he was fine and the next day he was burning with fever. Within twenty four hours he was gone. He is buried right behind my childhood home. The home no longer stands, but his little tombstone is still there, amongst the weeds.

We were very poor. Not the kind of poor that couldn't allow me to buy a new dress. Let me explain a bit. We were the kind of poor that left the stomach empty and ringworms on my skin. You see, my papa, Henry Atkinson, was a tenant farmer. This meant that he didn't own the land he farmed and, therefore, didn't get to keep all of the profits from the cotton crop. In fact, after the landowner got his share, hardly any money came my papa's way at all.

Our home was a clapboard shotgun home. The outhouse, and where we bathed, were both very unsanitary. I don't think a season went by without one of us getting hookworms, stomach viruses or the such. When it rained, the dirt roads connecting us to Maycomb, became impassable and when it was dry they became dusty, with deep ruts. Travel was difficult. However, despite these real hardships, ours was a home filled with love. Many nights were filled with song and/or stories which stemmed from my mama's imagination. It was very evident my mama and papa were true partners. She respected him and he respected her. He did his work, without much complaint, and she did her share, as well. Besides watching after the children, she would sew quilts and sell them in town, when she could. But please understand, theirs was not a typical relationship of that time and to add, they were raised as Baptists! They were an oddity to people in more ways than this one.

The reason I love azaleas so much is my mama used to plant them every season. They were a luxury, but she said the earth brightened up made for a brighter life. Daddy loved her and so he gave in to her passion for these flowers. Each year he'd buy her a new shrub even though they were perennials. By the time I was eleven, our front yard was the talk of the area. People would marvel at my mother's flowers. The naysayers would say we should have taken the money to buy basics, but my parents believed otherwise and could care less what anyone said. They lived their lives on their terms, no one else's.

Both mama and papa didn't have a prejudiced bone in their bodies. In fact, many of papa's ancestors helped slaves escape the south. Often the discussion around the table was both the freed slaves and the poor whites were subjugated by wealthy white landowners. There was a sense of comradery more than anything else and I felt no better than the black folks. It wasn't unusual for white and black families to barter food and many times we would help repair, or build, each other's homes. I remember one summer we all helped in building a log cabin for the Robinson family. It took only a week with so many people helping out. We had huge picnics every night and we all shared whatever food we had. All, and I mean ALL, were welcome at the table. A lot was done without the landowner, or furnishing merchant, directly involved. It was better that way.

My parents died of old age, within two days of the other. My mama died first and my papa, I believe, simply couldn't live without her. At the time of their deaths they lived in Montgomery, so they are buried in Antioch Cemetery. As I write it saddens me to think that I am the only member of my family still alive. I lost my other brother, John, in the war. My sister, Margaret, died of a heart attack and my sister, Mary committed suicide when her husband left her for Ms. Caroline Murphy. I miss them all so very much and as I write, tears come to my eyes remembering my dad's eyes when he looked at my mama, the touch of red in my mama's hair and the ways me and my siblings would play in the fields, during the clove of seasons, until the sun went down.

I don't know why I never married. As I said, later on I had hoped Atticus would take a shine to me, but earlier I simply never met a man who I felt would be a partner to me like papa was to mama. Most men wanted to be dominate and desired a wife to take care of the home and raise children. I never had interest in those things. I wanted to paint, plant and write. I supported myself by writing for the local paper and publishing anonymously, short stories and one novel, The Tenant Farmer's Wife. I bought my small home, across from the Finch family, and lived quietly. Mrs. Finch was a lovely and kind woman. I'm not sure if she ever knew that both Finch men wanted her for his own for she was a very humble woman. It was a sad day when she died, the same way my sister Margaret did. Watching her children grow up, and playing a small part in that, was wonderful and fulfilled whatever maternal instinct I may have had.

To this old woman, the way I was raised is a badge of honor.

Ch.3 - My papa was the first man in Maycomb to live, willingly, in the black community. He married my mama because he loved her, heart and soul. They had three children, and I, Dolphus Raymond II, was their first born. Papa always let the white folk think he was a drunk so it would ease their minds about his choices. But the truth was he never put a drop of alcohol to his lips. He was a quiet, good man, who inherited enough money for us to live on comfortably, without having to ask any favors or mingle too much with anyone. He rarely went to town. Rather, he chose to stay close to home and help mama raise us. We were protected, and sheltered. We were home schooled and never left home without him and/or mama with us. It was only when I turned thirteen that I began to get curious about Maycomb and the outside world. Both mama and papa tried to dissuade me. "There ain't nothin' worth nothin' out there but a bunch of mean people in a cruel world. We got each other and that's enough." But it wasn't. I wanted to go to college one day and maybe find myself a girl too.

Papa said when I was ready I would go to college up north where people were more "open-headed", as he would say. I didn't really understand. Open-headed about what? Well, I soon found out. One day when mama and papa were out on a drive to Montgomery, I snuck into Maycomb. Just to walk around. I felt like a turnip in a cotton field. Folk were staring at me, whispering. "There goes Raymond's kid." "Mulatto." "Nasty thing mixing races. Next thing you know they will want to all marry us." "Why don't he take his nigger wife and mulatto mules up north?"

I didn't feel scared or angry. I guess I was just plain shocked. I didn't even know what Mulatto was. It sounded horrible, whatever it was. I thought it was a disease, those people were afraid to catch it and that I was going to die. It had to be that. I put my head down and walked back home. I wasn't in town for more than thirty minutes.

When I got home, I was dirty from the dust and tired. I laid under a cool tree and fell fast asleep. When I woke up someone was shaking me. It was my sister, Loretta. She got so close to my face I could see the pores in her skin. She thought I was dead, just laying there like that.

As soon as mama and papa got home I told them what happened. Twenty different looks passed over their faces. I was really confused and I started to tremble a bit. Not too much, cause I didn't want to seem like a little boy. Papa sat me down and had a long talk with me. Mama added her two senses in whenever she wanted to.

"This is what you get, Dolphus, for trying to protect your son. I told you to be honest with him. He's a man now. Thirteen means he's all grown up. Now tell him, for goodness sake, or I will!"

"Millie, if you would just take a breath, dear, I will talk with our son!"

"Now Dolphus, here's the truth, in black and white. And I mean literally black and white."

When my papa finished talking, mama came over and held me. She asked if there was anything else I wanted to know. I just shook my head. Both of my parents reminded me how much they loved each other and their children. And the townsfolk were just a bunch of primitive fools. Papa mentioned a name, which I didn't catch, so lost in my thoughts I was, and said times were a changing.

Now I'm seventeen and heading to college in a month. My girlfriend is from Washington, D.C. I met her on my college visit and I already know one day she'll be my wife. She's beautiful, smart and likes me for exactly who I am. Mulatto and all.

Maudie came to talk to me the other day and asked me to join a group who will speak at a meeting, to show that they truly have nothing to fear but fear itself. I told her I would think about it. She's a good woman, whose family was always kind to all folk. But what's she's asking would put me in the center of a political situation which I have avoided down here, in my hometown. I feel like I almost made a clean escape, but now I'm torn. I feel a sense of obligation to speak up. But at the same time I don't want to stir a hornet's nest. Yes, I need to think about it.

Ch.4 -

You'd think everyone would remember my father, his trial and his dramatic death. But they don't. I even wonder if my mama remembers. She never talks about him now that she moved on and married another man and has done had his children. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who even cares about his memory at all. Nobody talks about him, the trial is only mentioned in whispers and word has it that even Mr. Finch was a phony. He be a racist, after all. Now that was something I NEVER thought I'd come to know. But that white man just like any other white man, all high and mighty over us "paw niggers". Well, I planned on taking my skinny black ass up north and find Malcolm X. I knew Martin Luther and his message of peaceful protest ain't going to do nothing against the white folks. Nah siree. They would never let go of their control just by us saying "pretty please". Anyone was damn stupid if you think otherwise.

But Miss Maudie stopped me dead in my tracks. I was passing her house when she called out to me. It was a beautiful spring afternoon and my thought was to take one last turn around Maycomb before I left for good.

"Hey, you, Mr. Robinson, sir. May I have a word with you?"

"For you, Miss Maudie, always, ma'am."

"Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Care to have a seat? The porch is a bit cooler than the sun where you are standing."

Even though I knew her to be a good woman, she was still white, and therefore, I couldn't trust her completely. After all, look what happened to my pa when he got too close to a white woman.

"I think I'll just stand her, in the front yard, if that's okay with you, Miss Maudie."

Sigh.

"Ok, Mr. Robinson. But listen closely now."

She told me her cockamamy plan.

I laughed and said, "Miss Maudie, with all due respect, I know you as a good woman. Your family has always been fair to my family and other negroes. But what you are suggesting is pure foolery. It ain't going to change nothing other than put my head in a noose faster."

"Now, Mr. Robinson, do you think I'd jeopardize you in such a fashion?"

"Not on purpose, Miss Maudie, but that is what would happen."

"Let me bring you a cup of tea and we'll discuss it, like civilized people rather than frightened alley cats."


End file.
